What's changed in the latest Fitbit device update?

Information

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We frequently release new features, improvements, and bug fixes to our customers by offering updates to a device's software. Known as firmware releases, they're free and easy to implement. For instructions see How do I update my Fitbit device?

Other Improvements

Thank you to the teams from the University of Padua, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the University of Edinburgh for their assistance.

Version 17.8.401.3

New Features

This release includes several new features on Fitbit Blaze and in the Fitbit dashboard.

Guided breathing sessions

Blaze now offers deep breathing exercises that adapt to your heart rate to help you find moments of calm throughout the day. The new Relax menu gives a choice between a two-minute or five-minute session.

The first time you go to the Relax screen you may be prompted once or twice to sync your tracker. To do so find the Sync Now option in the Fitbit app.

Cardio fitness

Based on VO2 Max (the gold standard for measuring cardiovascular health), your cardio fitness score is a new way to monitor your overall fitness over time. You’ll find your score, benchmarking stats, and much more on your heart rate history screen. Swipe the top graph to move back and forth between Heart Rate and Cardio Fitness.

Sleep stages

In addition to total nightly hours, you can now can see how much light, deep, and REM sleep you’re getting to help you better understand your sleep quality. You’ll also find your 30-day average and benchmarking stats.

Another change you may notice concerns restless vs awake minutes. To give you a better sense of your sleep cycles, we removed the “restless” category. For all the details, see What should I know about sleep stages?

Sleep insights

Sleep insights in the Fitbit app use your Fitbit data to provide personalized guidance on how to improve your sleep for better overall health. You can choose to like or dislike each insight and send feedback directly to our team.

Other Improvements

Active minutes now appear on your tracker and on your dashboard. Look for them in the Today menu with your other all-day stats.

The Alarms menu on your tracker now includes the option to create an alarm. You can still snooze and dismiss from the tracker as well.

Fixes and Known Issues

We’ve resolved an issue with connected GPS and notifications on Huawei mobile devices.

You may notice that your clock face changed or that you can’t start a Fitstar workout or Relax session after updating your tracker. To fix this issue, sync your tracker three times. Open the Fitbit app and wait a few moments for your tracker to sync automatically. Then manually sync your tracker twice using the Sync Now option in the Fitbit app.

Version 17.8.301.8

This release resolves a syncing issue with Apple iOS version 10.2.

Version 17.8.301.7

Since only a few customers received the previous release (8.301.4), this release includes the same new features and fixes but adds notification improvements as well. If the "workout" option is missing from your Exercise menu, add it back by following the instructions in How do I customize the Exercise menu on my Fitbit device?

Version 17.8.301.4

This release includes three new features:

In addition to call, text, and calendar event notifications, you can receive notifications from email and other third-party apps on your tracker. Common emojis also appear. Note that any notifications currently stored on your tracker will be deleted during the update. For more information, see How do I get notifications from my mobile device?

Track your stationary time throughout the day and get a reminder to move hourly as needed. For more information, see What is a reminder to move?

Several new clock faces are available. For step-by-step instructions on changing your clock face, see About Fitbit Blaze.

Also note the following behavior changes:

If you shut down your tracker either unintentionally through battery drain or intentionally to turn it off, the time will be incorrect when you turn it back on. Sync your tracker to fix the time.

An issue with the Brightness setting has been repaired.

Version 17.8.200.3

The Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages are now available on Blaze.

This release also resolves a couple issues:

You can resume a paused FitStar workout.

Characters on the screen are easier to read.

Version 17.8.104.1

This release resolves three issues:

Some customers reported that the backlight didn't turn off.

Some customers reported that music control stopped working with certain Android devices.

Some customers reported that receiving a large number of notifications at one time caused Blaze to restart unexpectedly.

Other Improvements

Thank you to the teams from the University of Padua, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the University of Edinburgh for their assistance.

Version 110

This release includes two improvements:

Quick View is more responsive.

Step data is now counted towards challenges even when your tracker has very low battery.

It also includes minor bug fixes.

Version 106

This release includes the following new features and improvements:

With Quick View, you don’t need a free hand to check the time on your Charge. Instead of pressing the button, just turn your wrist towards you and the time will appear for a few seconds. You can enable Quick View under Settings > Devices on your fitbit.com dash. If you find that your battery is draining too quickly, turn off Quick View.

Immediately get summary data about your workouts instead of waiting to sync your tracker. Now when you turn exercise mode off, your workout’s elapsed time scrolls across the tracker’s screen for about four seconds. After the elapsed time, the following summary stats appear in turn:

Calories burned

Steps taken

Distance covered

Floors climbed

If you miss the summary, you can always check your web (fitbit.com) or app dashboard after syncing to see all your historical data.

You can now tap your screen once to advance to the next screen.

When charging your tracker, you’ll now see the current battery level.

You no longer need to press the button to see your goal celebration. When you reach your fitness goal, your tracker will celebrate immediately.

This release also resolves the following issues:

High floor counts have been fixed. Some customers reported artificially inflated floor counts.

All exercise records now appear in your exercise history (known as the activity log on the fitbit.com dashboard). Some customers reported being unable to find historical activities.

Other Improvements

Thank you to the teams from the University of Padua, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the University of Edinburgh for their assistance.

Version 22.54.6

This release includes several minor bug fixes.

Version 22.53.4

What’s New

This release adds several new features to help you get to bed on time and find out more about what happens while you’re asleep.

Bedtime Reminders

Trying to get to sleep earlier at night? Friendly bedtime reminders can now appear on your Charge 2 and your mobile device. For more information, see How do I track my sleep?

Sleep insights

Sleep insights in the Fitbit app use your Fitbit data to provide personalized guidance on how to improve your sleep for better overall health. You can choose to like or dislike each insight and send feedback directly to our team.

What’s Fixed?

The release also includes minor bug fixes.

Version 22.48.14

What's New

This release improves several key features including notifications, exercise tracking, guided breathing, and more. Read on for all the details.

Notifications & reminders

If your Charge 2 displays calls, texts, events, or reminders to move:

Stepping into a meeting or a yoga class? You can now easily block notifications and reminders whenever you prefer not to be disturbed. From the clock face, just press and hold the button to stop notifications, then repeat when you want to turn them back on. You'll also find a Do Not Disturb menu on your tracker.

When you see a notification on your tracker, a plus sign (+) indicator means you have more than one. Remember notifications are only visible for one minute.

Callers are now identified as “unknown” if the number doesn’t match a name in your contact list.

The sequence for text notifications has changed. Instead of seeing the sender’s name followed by the message, you’ll now see the message first.

Step data is now counted towards challenges even when your tracker has very low battery.

It also provides minor bug and security fixes.

Version 18.84

This release includes the following new features and improvements:

With Quick View, you don’t need a free hand to check the time on your Fitbit Charge HR™. Instead of pressing the button, just turn your wrist towards you and the time will appear for a few seconds. You can enable Quick View under Settings > Devices on your Fitbit.com dash.If you find that your battery is draining too quickly, turn off Quick View.

Immediately get summary data about your workouts instead of waiting to sync your tracker. Now when you turn exercise mode off, your workout’s elapsed time scrolls across the tracker’s screen for about four seconds. After the elapsed time, the following summary stats appear in turn:

Average heart rate

Calories burned

Steps taken

Distance covered

Floors climbed

If you miss the summary, you can always check your web (Fitbit.com) or mobile dashboard after syncing to see all your historical data.

You can now tap your screen once to advance to the next screen.

When charging your tracker, you’ll now see the current battery level.

You no longer need to press the button to see your goal celebration. When you reach your fitness goal, your tracker will celebrate immediately.

This release also resolves the following issues:

High floor counts have been fixed. Some customers reported artificially inflated floor counts.

All exercise records now appear on the Activities page. Some customers reported being unable to find historical activities.

Other Improvements

Thank you to the teams from the University of Padua, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the University of Edinburgh for their assistance.

Version 81

Tracking your sleep just got easier. With our new autosleep detection feature, you don't need to turn on sleep mode before you go to bed or remember to turn it off when you wake up. Just wear your tracker while you sleep. As always, you'll see your sleep log after you sync your tracker in the morning. If you prefer to turn sleep mode on and off that option is still available. For details see How do I track my sleep?

This release also provides minor security and bug fixes.

Version 64

The device boot time after a restart is now faster.

The silent alarm vibration is improved.

Version 62

The charging status now continuously appears while the tracker is in the charger. Five blinking LEDs indicates a full charge.

The battery life is improved.

If you take 50 steps while your alarm is snoozed, the alarm turns off automatically.

Version 27.31.1.16

Version 27.25.16.7

This release includes Fitbit Pay and some bug fixes and improvements.

New Feature

Fitbit Pay

Now you can add your credit and debit cards to Fitbit Ionic and make contactless payments right from your watch—even when you’re traveling internationally. Note this feature is coming soon to the Fitbit app for Windows 10.

Other Improvements

Thank you to the teams from the University of Padua, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the University of Edinburgh for their assistance.

Version 60

Battery life has been extended to two weeks.

Real-time sync is available in the mobile apps.

If you take 50 steps while your alarm is snoozed, the alarm turns off automatically.

If you press the button any time during snooze (which lasts 9 minutes), the alarm is not canceled. The alarm is only canceled if you press the button while the alarm is going off or if you walk 50 steps during the snooze.

Version 46

Distance is recording correctly for activities. A small number of customers reported that the distance tracked while their tracker was in activity mode was incorrect.

The tracker restarts correctly. Some customers reported a restart issue after the Daylight Savings change.

When fully charged, Surge can now track up to 10 hours of GPS activity.

We've fine tuned the step-counting algorithm to further improve accuracy during bike rides.

Call and text notifications are now removed after 24 hours.

The release also provides minor bug fixes.

Version 16.31.6.3

This release provides the following new features and improvements:

When you set your iOS device to "Do Not Disturb," your tracker will no longer receive notifications. This feature will be available soon for Android devices.

This release resolves the following issues:

Some customers reported that floors weren't being counted. Elevation gain (floor counting) is now working as expected.

Some customers reported a discrepancy between total steps and total distance. Step and distance data is now working as expected.

Version 16.31.5.8

This release provides the following new features and improvements:

Bike is now an option on the Exercise Menu.

In addition to iOS, Surge can now control music playing on Android devices running Android OS 4.4 and higher.

After 15 seconds of inactivity, your Surge will revert to the clock screen.

The French, Italian, German, and Spanish languages are supported by Surge firmware. If your dashboard locale is set to any of these languages, you will be prompted through another update to change the language on your Surge tracker.

When charging your Surge, the charging icon persists on every screen. A battery icon appears when the battery is low.

GPS stability at high elevations is now improved. Some customers reported difficulty getting a consistent GPS signal at high elevations.

Version 16.29.9.2

This release provides the following features and improvements:

A new alarm vibration pattern

Improved GPS stability

Improved battery-level accuracy

Fitbit app for Windows Phone support. Currently it is not possible to set up a Surge for the first time using the Fitbit app for Windows Phone, but once the tracker is set up you can log into your account on the Fitbit app for Windows Phone and use it normally.

The following issues are resolved:

use the tracker resets its daily values at midnight, customers exercising at this time reported unexpected behavior. Runs or exercises being tracked at midnight are displaying correctly.

A small number of customers reported artificially high step and calorie values after certain runs. Runs are reporting accurate steps and calories.

Some customers reported that after shutting down their tracker the restart process was slow or, in rare cases, failed. Trackers are now turning back on as expected.